Chapter 116 - The Admiral's Blood Price
The silence in the sub-deck surgical chamber was suffocating, broken only by the steady beep of the heart monitor.
Claire did not lower her rifle, her optics lined up precisely between Vance’s arrogant eyes.
"What do you want, Vance?" she demanded, every muscle coiled to strike.
"The master encryption ledger you retrieved from the Rotunda," Vance said, extending his open palm.
"That ledger contains the names of every corrupt official in the Pentagon," Claire said coldly.
"It contains my future, Commander," Vance corrected her with an icy grin.
"If I hand it over, you execute us both the second we clear the hatch," Claire countered.
"You don't have a choice," Vance said, his thumb applying slight pressure to the red trigger switch.
Inside the glass cylinder, the digital heart monitor spiked sharply from sixty beats per minute to eighty-five.
Liam’s eyelids fluttered beneath the pale fluid, his fingers twitching faintly against the glass.
Claire noticed the movement immediately, her pulse hammering against her eardrums.
He wasn't fully comatose; his nervous system was responding to the sound of her voice.
"You have thirty seconds, Claire," Vance warned, checking his gold wristwatch. "Upload the code, or watch him drown."
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Claire slowly reached into her tactical vest with her left hand, pulling out the matte-black flash drive.
"Here it is," Claire said, holding the drive between two fingers. "Step away from the console."
